Ellen Page Says Brett Ratner Made Comment Outing Her

Ellen Page has become one of the latest actors to share her story of sexual harassment, accusing the director and producer Brett Ratner of suggesting crudely that another woman have sex with Ms. Page “to make her realize she’s gay.”

Ms. Page, 30, known for films including “Juno,” “Inception” and “To Rome With Love,” said in a Facebook post on Friday that when Mr. Ratner made his comment, she was 18 and had not yet come out as a lesbian. She came out in 2014.

Mr. Ratner, whose films include “The Revenant” and “Rush Hour,” is facing several allegations of sexual misconduct. On Nov. 1, The Los Angeles Times reported that six women said Mr. Ratner had sexually harassed or assaulted them.

Ms. Page said that when Mr. Ratner made his comment, at a cast event for the 2006 movie “X-Men: The Last Stand,” she looked down at her feet. “I felt violated when this happened,” she said, adding that no one, including herself, spoke up in her defense.

Another actor, Anna Paquin, said on Twitter on Friday that she was there when the comment was made. “I stand with you,” she added, tagging Ms. Page.

“If you can’t think of the glaringly obvious reason I remained silent,” Ms. Paquin said in a subsequent post, “then perhaps you’ve forgotten that I’ve been in this victim grooming industry since before I hit puberty.”

In addition to the allegations against Mr. Ratner that were reported by The Los Angeles Times, another woman, Melanie Kohler, said in a Facebook post on Oct. 18 that Mr. Ratner had raped her. She took down the post after a phone call with Martin Singer, a lawyer for Mr. Ratner.

Mr. Ratner went on to file a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Kohler that said her post was “entirely false, fabricated and fictional.”

In statement to The New York Times regarding the other allegations, Mr. Singer said he and Mr. Ratner “are confident that his name will be cleared once the current media frenzy dies down and people can objectively evaluate the nature of these claims.” Mr. Singer did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment on Saturday about Ms. Page’s allegations.

Ms. Page’s lengthy post was more than an accusation against Mr. Ratner.

“The behavior I’m describing is ubiquitous,” she wrote. “They (abusers), want you to feel small, to make you insecure, to make you feel like you are indebted to them, or that your actions are to blame for their unwelcome advances.”

She recalled being touched or assaulted by at least two other men when she was 16, and she said she regretted working with the director Woody Allen, who has also been accused of abuse.

Ms. Page, who developed and produced “Gaycation,” a documentary series in which she traveled around the world meeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, called violence against women an “epidemic,” and her post touched on homophobia, privilege, victimization and white supremacy.

“Let’s remember the epidemic of violence against women in our society disproportionately affects low income women, particularly women of color, trans and queer women and indigenous women, who are silenced by their economic circumstances and profound mistrust of a justice system that acquits the guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence and continues to oppress people of color,” she wrote, adding that she had the privilege of wealth and a platform to speak out.

“I am grateful to anyone and everyone who speaks out against abuse and trauma they have suffered,” Ms. Page wrote on Friday. “You are breaking the silence. You are revolution.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misattributed a quotation about a Facebook post by Melanie Kohler. It was the director and producer Brett Ratner — not his lawyer Martin Singer — who said in a lawsuit that the post was “entirely false, fabricated and fictional.”